Lost Voice

My mother gave me a hard time for being mad at God and unable to pray anymore. She said I was putting conditions on God, as if I were a spoiled child turning my back, sticking out my tongue and saying "if you won't give me what I want I won't talk to you anymore." But that's not it at all. Shouldn't she know me better than that anyway? I was too upset at the time to discuss it further and just ended the conversation and walked away. Merry fucking Christmas.

I wish she could have talked less and listened more. The last thing that grieving people need is to be hit over the head with the Bible. I'd rather be hit with a 2x4 than a Bible. I imagine it would hurt less. I wish I could have explained it better. But at the time I was simply too upset to even try.

There's a scene in a movie that best describes what this feels like. It's a gut-wrenching scene that will rip your heart right out of your chest. It's from the movie Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr. Sandra's character moves from Chicago to Texas with her daughter when she finds out that her husband is having an affair. When Sandra's mother dies, the husband comes to visit and the daughter wants to go back "home" with her dad. But her dad is too focused on his paramour to let his daughter come home with him. In the scene, when he tells her good-bye, she runs upstairs, packs a backpack and grabs a teddy bear, thinking he will take her with him. She follows her dad out of the house and down to his car begging him to let her go with him. Clutching the teddy bear, she follows him down the sidewalk saying "Daddy, take me with you." But he just keeps walking away, half-heartedly telling her that he loves her but she can't come with him. Again and again she pleads and again and again he walks further away until she is hysterically screaming on the sidewalk and he is driving away to go find his girlfriend. She ends up standing on the sidewalk alone, howling for her daddy. It is the ultimate rejection for a little girl. Finally, her mother comes out and picks her up and takes her inside.

In my heart it feels like I am the little girl and God is the dad who is too interested in his paramour - in this case, all the pregnant women of the world - to listen to me. Apparently they simply hold more appeal than I do. But there's only so long you can stand on the sidewalk and scream before you lose your voice and have to give up and go inside.

The grief that childless couples experience is unique and it is naive to expect those who have never been there to relate. But I thought surely my mother of all people would be wise enough not to try to justify what is happening. As if somehow I am the problem and I need to just get with the program. If God is really up there and is really the God that I believe him to be, then he will understand my need for silence and not judge me for it. He will even understand when I expect him to be angry with me at the injustice of the situation. How can the inner-city crack whore have a baby but not me? How can Britney Spears have a baby but not me? Isn't he a God of justice? Shouldn't he rightfully be angry when injustice occurs? Shouldn't he rightfully do something about it? Yes, I expect him to someday fix this. Somehow. I do expect things of him. I do expect him to comfort me and make the situation bearable somehow. Is that so wrong?